Maybe I’ll stop using the word ‘spiritual’.

I’m not sure, but it’s tempting.

We talk about it like it’s a piece of cheese on a farmer’s table, like we all agree on what it looks like, tastes like, and what it means.

But we don’t, not at all.

Spirituality might be one of the most subjective and broadly interpreted concepts out there.

We can’t stop picking up those things and running away with them.

Yesterday I came across someone who was talking about ‘spiritual progress’, somewhere on a random social media platform.

One of the comments mentioned ‘spiritual bypassing’, and that it’s a bad, bad thing.

Really?

Because I call total, utter, painful, infuriating bullshit.

I mean: spiritual improvement?

What does that even mean?

How do you become MORE spiritual if you’re already everything, if you are life playing with itself, Wholeness having fun?

How do you progress spiritually, and where are the exams you can take to earn the diplomas and certificates for your spiritual wall?

Does it really make sense that you, a non-stop creation of divine illusion, need to better in any way, to become more of what it already is?

Is it a sign of spiritual advancement when you are more loving and empathetic and humble and mindful, and how do you measure that, and how do you know how much more there is to change, and who decided on this in the first place?

Sounds to me those are just rules that are invented to keep this Awakening Club exclusive.

Ugh.

And that stupid ‘spiritual bypassing’ thing again.

Come on!

How can people be so ignorant that they don’t see how ridiculously made up that is, how that’s just another mental construct to divide everything into pieces and make some people look more sincere and serious than others?

‘No, no, no, I’m working through my pain, and I’m not using spirituality to deny any of my darkness or my responsibility to change the world, haha, so pure, right?!’

Wrong.

Well, not wrong, of course, but also not right.

Bullshit, for sure.

Spiritual bypassing is exactly like saying you’re supposed to pray five times a day if you want to be a good Christian.

It’s made up.

You don’t have to do anything to be spiritual, and you can’t be EXTRA spiritual, even if you dress up like a guru, call yourself Nick Namaste, and move to Ibiza.

Ugh once more.

Whenever people open their mouths and start talking about how the universe should be, or how WE should be to be more divine, I tend to start suffering from spontaneous cringiness.

I know it’s part of this marvelous game, all these made-up things, I know, but it annoys the shit out of me just the same.

Especially in this bubble called spirituality, it’s so obvious that we simply can’t seem to shake our human tendency to be better and more and ultimate, even though we pretend to have descended our mere mortal status.

It’s never enough just the way it is, and there’s ALWAYS more shadow work and inner-child work and whateverthefuck work, before we’re finally…

Finally what?

What is the endgame here?

And which holy institute governs over our spiritual habits, our spiritual ideas, and our spiritual progress?

There’s no such thing, and you know it.

Now you could ask why I even bother to be fucked up about this.

And that would be a fair question.

And I don’t have to.

And most of the time I’m not.

But once in a while, I’m obviously looking for stupid notions to demolish.

I think that’s very spiritual.

—

(Photo by @timrael, for Unsplash)